(a) secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism;

(b) detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations;

(c) expedite determinations of apprehended individuals’ claims of eligibility to remain in the United States;

(d) remove promptly those individuals whose legal claims to remain in the United States have been lawfully rejected, after any appropriate civil or criminal sanctions have been imposed; and

(e) cooperate fully with States and local law enforcement in enacting Federal-State partnerships to enforce Federal immigration priorities, as well as State monitoring and detention programs that are consistent with Federal law and do not undermine Federal immigration priorities.

(a) Ensure the faithful execution of the immigration laws of the United States, including the INA, against all removable aliens, consistent with Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution and section 3331 of title 5, United States Code;

(b) Make use of all available systems and resources to ensure the efficient and faithful execution of the immigration laws of the United States;

(c) Ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law;

(d) Ensure that aliens ordered removed from the United States are promptly removed; and

(e) Support victims, and the families of victims, of crimes committed by removable aliens.

Pursuant to which, Executive Order 13768 further states:

Enforcement Priorities. In executing faithfully the immigration laws of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) shall prioritize for removal those aliens described by the Congress in sections 212(a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(6)(C), 235, and 237(a)(2) and (4) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2), (a)(3), and (a)(6)(C), 1225, and 1227(a)(2) and (4)), as well as removable aliens who:

(a) Have been convicted of any criminal offense;

(b) Have been charged with any criminal offense, where such charge has not been resolved;

(c) Have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense;

(d) Have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency;

(e) Have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits;

(f) Are subject to a final order of removal, but who have not complied with their legal obligation to depart the United States; or

(g) In the judgment of an immigration officer, otherwise pose a risk to public safety or national security.

Executive Order 13769: Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, which states:

It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.

Sec. 3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern.

(a) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.

(c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).

(d) Immediately upon receipt of the report described in subsection (b) of this section regarding the information needed for adjudications, the Secretary of State shall request all foreign governments that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals within 60 days of notification.

(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs.

(f) At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment.

(g) Notwithstanding a suspension pursuant to subsection (c) of this section or pursuant to a Presidential proclamation described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.

(h) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall submit to the President a joint report on the progress in implementing this order within 30 days of the date of this order, a second report within 60 days of the date of this order, a third report within 90 days of the date of this order, and a fourth report within 120 days of the date of this order.

Much has been written abut these executive orders, a great deal of which is wrong:

First, it was not the Trump Administration who selected the seven nations covered by Executive Order 13769, it was the Obama Administration, which in February of 2016 added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to “Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria as countries subject to restrictions for Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals.”

What did Trump do? Did he implement his promised Muslim ban? No, far from it. He backed down dramatically from his campaign promises and instead signed an executive order dominated mainly by moderate refugee restrictions and temporary provisions aimed directly at limiting immigration from jihadist conflict zones.

Let’s analyze the key provisions, separate the fact from the hysteria, and introduce just a bit of historical perspective.

First, the order temporarily halts refugee admissions for 120 days to improve the vetting process, then caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per year. Outrageous, right? Not so fast. Before 2016, when Obama dramatically ramped up refugee admissions, Trump’s 50,000 stands roughly in between a typical year of refugee admissions in George W. Bush’s two terms and a typical year in Obama’s two terms.

Despite what various liberal protestors would have you believe, President Trump’s Executive Orders are firmly within the bounds of existing federal immigration laws:

Federal immigration law also includes Section 1182(f), which states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate” (emphasis added).

Section 1182(f) plainly and sweepingly authorizes the president to issue temporary bans on the entry of classes of aliens for national-security purposes. This is precisely what President Trump has done. In fact, in doing so, he expressly cites Section 1182(f), and his executive order tracks the language of the statute (finding the entry of aliens from these countries at this time “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”).

The mainstream media would like you to believe that Trump’s orders limiting immigration are widely unpopular. That’s not the case:

Politically, the open borders rhetoric helps Trump. Even in California, three-quarters of the population, according to a recent UC Berkeley survey, oppose sanctuary cities. Overall, more Americans favor less immigration than more. Most, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, also want tougher border controls and increased deportations. They also want newcomers to come legally and adopt the prevailing cultural norms, including English.

You know how all your liberal Facebook friends say that “no Muslim refugees” have been involved in terrorism in the United States? That’s false. At least 20 have. Among these lovely individuals was Ramadan Alwan. “He pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill U.S. nationals abroad; conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) against U.S. nationals abroad.” He also “boasted about attacks on American troops in Iraq.”

Even more ridiculous and blinkered is the suggestion that there may be something unconstitutional about refusing entry to refugees or discriminating among them on religious or other bases (a reaction that was shared at first by some Republicans, including Mike Pence, when Trump’s plan was announced in December 2015). There are plenty of moral and political arguments on these points, but foreigners have no right under our Constitution to demand entry to the United States or to challenge any reason we might have to refuse them entry, even blatant religious discrimination. Under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress’s powers in this area are plenary, and the president’s powers are as broad as the Congress chooses to give him. If liberals are baffled as to why even the invocation of the historically problematic “America First” slogan by Trump is popular with almost two-thirds of the American public, they should look no further than people arguing that foreigners should be treated by the law as if they were American citizens with all the rights and protections we give Americans.

Liberals are likewise on both unwise and unpopular ground in sneering at the idea that there might be an increased risk of radical Islamist terrorism resulting from large numbers of Muslims entering the country as refugees or asylees. There have been many such cases in Europe, ranging from terrorists (as in the Brussels attack) posing as refugees to the infiltration of radicals and the radicalization of new entrants. The 9/11 plotters, several of whom overstayed their visas in the U.S. after immigrating from the Middle East to Germany, are part of that picture as well. Here in the U.S., we have had a number of terror attacks carried out by foreign-born Muslims or their children. The Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing were children of asylees; the Times Square bomber was a Pakistani immigrant; the underwear bomber was from Nigeria; the San Bernardino shooter was the son of Pakistani immigrants; the Chattanooga shooter was from Kuwait; the Fort Hood shooter was the son of Palestinian immigrants. All of this takes place against the backdrop of a global movement of radical Islamist terrorism that kills tens of thousands of people a year in terrorist attacks and injures or kidnaps tens of thousands more.

Evidence suggests that Hilary Clinton received 800,000 votes from illegal aliens. Not the three million Trump claimed, but clearly more than the “zero” Democrats falsely claim.

Austin is now ground zero for cutting both state and federal fund for refusing to cooperate in enforcing immigration laws. Expect more detail on this at a future date.

“The House chairman who oversees Justice Department spending is telling so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ that funding for police, jails and housing will end under President Trump’s new executive orders tightening immigration control. ‘It’s real easy, their money disappears. There’s no fight, their money is gone,’ said Texas Rep. John Culberson, chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds Justice.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

It’s unfortunate that Judge [James] Robart’s decision, like the one handed down last weekend in the Eastern District of New York, includes nearly no legal reasoning or explanation, such that we could judge why he found the order unconstitutional or illegal. Federal district judges often issue very summary orders when they are asked to rule on an emergency basis on a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, so expecting a scholarly opinion is unrealistic. But with the order halting a nationwide Executive Branch policy in its tracks and sure to be used as a political club, it should not have been too much to ask the court to provide some clue to its reasoning for just saying “this is illegal.”

Fourth, this is a TRO: it applies only until the court can hold a more complete hearing, which it scheduled for Monday.

Over the weekend, I stopped to buy gas at a Buc-ee’s in Bastrop, Texas, and was greeted by (in addition to a man dressed as a giant aquatic rodent) an A-frame sign advertising Buc-ee’s version of the minimum wage: cashiers, $12 to $14 an hour; food-service and car-wash help, $13 to $15 an hour; team leaders, $14 to $17 an hour; assistant, $17 an hour and up. Each job came with three weeks paid time off each year, which employees are welcome to use, roll over, or exchange for cash. If you want 40 hours a week, there’s 40 hours a week to be had; if you want more than 40 hours a week, that can happen, too.

Everyone’s needs vary, of course, and I am not among those who believe that a two-income household is ideal for every situation. But I also believe that you can raise a family decently on $70,000 a year in Bastrop, where you can buy a perfectly serviceable house for less than $100,000 and where a nice, new one keeps you under the usual 2.5-times-your-income rule. Assuming a couple of raises and a bit of overtime, a married couple both working at a gas station could bring home something close to a six-figure income between them.

He mentions the kolaches but not the fudge. He also omits something the non-Texan audience wouldn’t be aware of, namely of just how large Buc-ee’s is; the Bastrop location is bigger than most supermarkets…

Conservatives have had difficulty choosing a champion in the presidential race in part because it has featured so many candidates with very good claims on our support. As their number has dwindled, the right choice has become clear: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

We supported Cruz’s campaign in 2012 because we saw in him what conservatives nationwide have come to see as well. Cruz is a brilliant and articulate exponent of our views on the full spectrum of issues. Other Republicans say we should protect the Constitution. Cruz has actually done it; indeed, it has been the animating passion of his career. He is a strong believer in the liberating power of free markets, including free trade (notwithstanding the usual rhetorical hedges). His skepticism about “comprehensive immigration reform” is leading him to a realism about the impact of immigration that has been missing from our policymaking and debate. He favors a foreign policy based on a hard-headed assessment of American interests, one that seeks to strengthen our power but is mindful of its limits. He forthrightly defends religious liberty, the right to life of unborn children, and the role of marriage in connecting children to their parents — causes that reduce too many other Republicans to mumbling.

That forthrightness is worth emphasizing. Conservatism should not be merely combative; but especially in our political culture, it must be willing to be controversial. Too many Republicans shrink from this implication of our creed. Not Cruz. And this virtue is connected to others that primary voters should keep in mind. Conservatives need not worry that Cruz will be tripped up by an interview question, or answer it with mindless conventional wisdom when a better answer is available. We need rarely worry, either, that his stumbling words will have to be recast by aides and supporters later. Neither of those things could be said about a lot of Republican nominees over the years.

Not sure it moves the needle much, since National Review has made its preference for Cruz over Donald Trump clear over the last year, but maybe it will help some of Marco Rubio’s wavering backers push him more strongly to get out of the race.

The New Republic, the century-old magazine that was rocked a year ago by the mass exodus of its staff following an effort by its owner to make it more digitally focused, is being put up for sale.

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook who purchased a majority stake in the struggling title in 2012, said in a staff memo Monday that he had underestimated “the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate,” and would seek to find a new owner.

“After investing a great deal of time, energy, and over $20 million, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for new leadership and vision at The New Republic,” the memo read.

Translation: I took a still-important liberal opinion magazine and managed to turn it into a Salon-clone that managed to lose even more money than Salon.

Also this:

“Immediately following the tumult, the magazine’s Web traffic declined by more than 50%, according to comScore Inc., and hasn’t risen much in the last year. In November, the site attracted 2.3 million unique visitors, down 38% from the same month a year earlier.”

Publishing an opinion magazine is an expensive, generally money-losing proposition. William F. Buckley, Jr. kept National Review afloat thanks to regular reader fundraising solicitations and money from his own pocket. This is why we’re willing to give NRO a lot of slack when they keep pushing their wine club and yearly cruises. (This path is of course open to The New Republic, except who on earth would want to be trapped on a boat for two weeks with current TNR writers?)

The New Republic used to fill an important role as a voice of liberal hetrodoxy, despite the magazine’s general decline over the years. After the shakeup, it no longer fulfilled any important role whatsoever except as a cautionary example of what not to do and a method of sucking money from Chris Hughes’ pockets.

Now let’s see if Hughes can find another clueless liberal millionaire to keep pouring money down the rathole…

Detroit has the highest child-mortality rate of any American city, exceeding that of many parts of what we used to call the Third World. The rate of death before the age of 18 in Detroit is nearly three times New York City’s, and its infant-mortality rate exceeds that of Botswana. The main cause of premature death among the children of Detroit is premature birth — the second is murder. While the city’s murder rate among adults is nothing to be proud of, more horrifying is the fact that between 30 and 40 children are murdered in Detroit in a typical year.

Detroit represents nothing less than progressivism in its final stage of decadence: Worried that unionized public-sector workers are looting your city? Detroit is already bankrupt, unable to provide basic services expected of it — half the streetlights don’t work, transit has been reduced, neighborhoods go unpatrolled. Worried that public-sector unions are ruining your schools? Detroit’s were ruined a generation or more ago, the results of which are everywhere to be seen in the city. Worried that Obamacare is going to ruin our health-care markets? General-practice physicians are hard to find in Detroit, and those willing to accept Medicaid — which covers a great swath of Detroit’s population — are rarer still. Worried about the permissive culture? Four out of five of Detroit’s children are born out of wedlock. Worried that government is making it difficult for businesses to thrive? Many people in Detroit have to travel miles to find a grocery store. This is the endgame of welfare economics: What good is Medicaid if there are no doctors? What good are food stamps where there is no food? What good are “free” schools if you’re so afraid to send your children there that you feel it prudent to arm them first?

When you’re a domain expert in something, sometimes you agree with the central point of an article, but enough details ring false that you wonder how closely the reporter has been following the story. For example, this Betsy Woodruff piece in National Review gets the big picture right (David Dewhurst’s loss to Ted Cruz has weakened him politically), but gets numerous details wrong.

“Only one person has ever lost an election to Ted Cruz, and he’s not doing so well right now. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst,”

No. The proper way to start that sentence is “Only one person has ever lost a runoff to Ted Cruz.” Paul Sadler lost an election to Ted Cruz, and a whole bunch of other candidates (Tom Leppert, Craig James, Glenn Addison, etc.) lost a primary to Cruz.

“But things went from bad to worse for him when the news broke, shortly after his defeat, that his former campaign manager, Kenneth Barfield, appeared to have stolen millions from the lieutenant governor’s campaign coffers over the previous five years.”

“Further, [Dan] Patrick used to be a vocal champion of Dewhurst’s. During the contest for the senatorial nomination, Patrick strongly defended the lieutenant governor on his radio show.”

This is not how I remember things. Patrick contemplated a run against Dewhurst himself, criticizing Dewhurst at length over his handling of the anti-TSA groping bill. He did finally come down on Dewhurst’s side against Cruz very late in the game, i.e., only a week before the runoff, but I don’t recall him being particularly vocal. (Granted, I don’t listen to Patrick’s radio show. Maybe he was far more vocal in support there in that last week.)

The piece is otherwise fairly reasonable, but I found it just wrong enough to merit correction…

Mr. Dewhurst’s vulgar and dishonest campaign of scorched-earth ad hominem against Mr. Cruz raises serious questions about his judgment and his commitment to conservative values.

He has transformed himself from second-best to flailing embarrassment. He has run campaign ads that are clearly predicated on the notion that Texas conservatives are rubes — ads that treat national conservative groups such as the Club for Growth as out-of-state interlopers, and that attack Cruz for taking on unpopular clients as an attorney.

They also pigeonhole Dewhurst’s politics with scorching accuracy:

Mr. Dewhurst is an undistinguished, go-along/get-along creature of the GOP leadership’s seniority-oriented model of politics. He is a student of the school of thought that rallied party operatives behind Indiana’s too-long-lived Richard Lugar when a credible conservative alternative was available in the person of Richard Mourdock. His views — though perhaps not his temperament — would make him an ideal candidate to represent a state such as Maine, where the only other option would be a Democrat to his left. But a strong conservative can win in Texas, and we have one in Ted Cruz.

In summation:

Texas deserves something more than another time-serving Republican placeholder, and Ted Cruz is as fine a candidate as is seeking office today. Republican primary voters rarely are presented with so obvious a choice or so rich an opportunity.

Read the whole thing. And those comparisons of the Cruz-Dewhurst race to the Pat Toomey-Arlen Specter race are going to leave a scar…

More lessons from Wisconsin, including the note that liberals weren’t complaining when union money was dominating elections, or when Obama raised over $1 billion in 2008.

Despite liberal assertions to the contrary, “none of the money spent on Walker’s behalf would have been illegal before Citizens United either.”

Jim Geraghty says that Scott Walker has done the Wisconsin Democratic Party, the public sector unions, the progressives and angry leftists a favor: “He has liberated them from the soothing illusion that they are popular, and that the public agrees with them.” Sorry Jim, can’t agree with you there. Go over to Daily Kos, or Democratic Underground, or even Twitter, and you’ll find that the liberal capacity for self-delusion is essentially infinite. For example, many are crowing that they actually won the recall because they picked up the state senate seat they needed to flip that chamber to Democratic control. Oh, one problem: It’s not scheduled to meet anytime between now and November, when redistricting will probably flip it back to Republican control.

Let’s take a look at the reactions of one of the less delusional liberals. Of course, there’s the usual hard-left refusal to consider the possibility that public employee unions have become a parasitic class that is helping to drive government toward insolvency, and an insistance that if they just fought harder they could have won. But there’s also a fairly cold-eyed realization that Republicans fought better, organized better, and played to win:

The Republicans mobilized, just like we did. But they mobilized their party, they mobilized their donors, they didn’t do it in a half-assed cover your ass way where their ego wasn’t on the line. They doubled down on Scott Walker. They showed no weakness. They played to won, and, ultimately, they won.

(Some snippage, including how the DNC was willing to pour money into the losing campaigns of Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson but not Wisconsin.)

I hope we can see from this that when it comes to certain people and certain causes, the Democratic Party pulls out all the stops. They spend it in ways that are not related to any strategy of furthering progressive goals or shoring up progressive long term assets like union organization and GOTV. This isn’t about strategy to them. It’s about control.

So when you look at the Republicans gleefully celebrating, give them credit, because this is a massive victory for them. They didn’t just win handily. They saved a hero, a man who stood up to the unions and didn’t flinch, a man who, while divisive, divided things correctly as far as they were concerned. And he’s just one of many to come. Because if you can get away with this shit in Wisconsin, as mad as people were there, and if you can get away with this without the Democratic Party even really putting its ego on the line… Well, keep on going. To the sea, if necessary.

I raised the image earlier of a Confederate general on his horse on a hill watching the Sherman’s Union soldiers raze the fields. Imagine now a woman, down there in the fields, her fields, looking up, and seeing that general on his horse, shrugging, saying, “I guess shit happens. Madame, you have my sympathy.”

There was talk on CNN today with Democratic experts like Paul Begala addressing the issue of whether what happened today in Wisconsin would affect Obama in November. The somewhat strained consensus of the Democratic experts was, naw… Wisconsin ALWAYS votes Democratic in presidential elections.

It votes Democratic because of unions and grass roots GOTV organizing. The money and effort that they DID NOT put into Wisconsin today would have gone to strengthening and shoring up that organization. You can be quite certain that the Republicans, who busted their asses on this election, built up their Wisconsin organization. That’s permanent asset-building. The Democratic Party saw no value in it.

That’s why they won. That’s why we lost. Koch brothers, Citizen United: all of them are less important than you really think. You can’t win if your party doesn’t think it’s important enough to really try.

After all, it was hardly a surprise given the cover issue treatment they already gave him. But it’s good to be ahead of the curve, if only for one day. And their endorsement is well worth reading:

To borrow a phrase from baseball, Cruz is what one might call a “five-tool” candidate: He is good on the Constitution, on the economy, on social issues, and on foreign policy, and he possesses the intellect and rhetorical gifts to combine these views into a clear, cogent, and compelling conservative vision for America.